Error: Unable to find @SpringBootConfiguration when doing @WebMvcTest for Spring Controller

So here is the solution:

The documentation on detecting test configuration says:

The search algorithm works up from the package that contains the test until it finds a @SpringBootApplication or @SpringBootConfiguration annotated class. As long as you’ve structure your code in a sensible way your main configuration is usually found.

So the @SpringBootApplication class should be higher in the package hierarchy than the test class e.g if test class is in package com.zerosolutions.controller then @SpringBootApplication class should be in a package higher than com.zerosolutions.controller package i.e com.zerosolutions or com.

Problem

But in case the @SpringBootApplication class is at the same level as test class it won't be able to find it i.e com.zerosolutions.general. In this case you'll get the following error:

java.lang.IllegalStateException: Unable to find a @SpringBootConfiguration, you need to use @ContextConfiguration or @SpringBootTest(classes=...) with your test

Solution

If you are running an integrated test, you can explicitly mention the @SpringBootApplication class like this

@RunWith(SpringRunner.class)
@SpringBootTest(classes={SpringBootApp.class})

But if you want to do unit testing of a controller you don't need to fire up the whole Spring context. You can rather replace @SpringBootTest with @WebMvcTest(MasterController.class). This will instantiate only the web layer with MasterController and not the whole Spring context.

Problem

But the problem is you will again run into the error we faced earlier:

java.lang.IllegalStateException: Unable to find a @SpringBootConfiguration, you need to use @ContextConfiguration or @SpringBootTest(classes=...) with your test

And @WebMvtTest does not have a classes attribute like @SpringBootTest to explicitly mention the @SpringBootApplication class. So there are two solutions to this.

Solution

First: Move your application class to a package higher than the test class i.e com.zerosolutions or com package.

Second: Mention your @SpringBootApplication class explicitly like below

@RunWith(SpringRunner.class)
@WebMvcTest(MasterController.class)
@ContextConfiguration(classes={SpringBootApp.class})

Hope that clears the Spring Test Configuration confusion. Thanks

If your Application.java class (in src/main/java) is located under

com.A.B

Your test class ApplicationTest.java (in src/test/java) need to be under

com.A.B or com.A.B.C or com.A.B.C.D

You will get this error if the test class is located under the following packages

com.A or com.A.C or com.A.D

In Spring boot THE GENERAL RULE IS TEST CLASS PACKAGE NAME NEED TO START WITH THE PACKAGE NAME OF THE JAVA CLASS PACKAGE THAT IS GOING TO BE TESTED

I had the same error, and found that when I had generated the project my pom.xml showed my groupId as com.example rather than with my actual domain:
<groupId>com.example</groupId>
I corrected the pom.xml to be:
<groupId>com.mydomain</groupId>
Next, I changed the file structure from:
src/test/java/com/example to src/test/java/com/mydomain
Last, I had to update the package declaration inside my
SampleProjectApplicationTest.java
file to match the correct file structure. Once that was all in place, the tests worked fine.

I am not sure how I ended up with com.example where the rest of my project was correct, but the fix was that simple in my case.

Hopefully this helps someone.